moonstone colors

Literary analysis:

In literature, “moonstone” is often invoked not just as a precious gem but as a descriptor for a unique, ethereal color. Authors have used its name to evoke a sense of soft, glowing radiance—its “pearly whiteness” suggesting both mystery and delicacy, as seen when it is placed alongside the fiery hue of sunstone and the iridescence of opal [1]. Similarly, the gem’s “moonlike, silvery-white light” is employed to create images of shifting, almost otherworldly illumination that captures the reader’s imagination [2].

He loved the red-gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal.
— from Oscar Wilde by Leonard Cresswell Ingleby
The moonstone, with its moonlike, silvery-white light, changes on the surface as the light varies.
— from The Curious Lore of Precious Stones Being a description of their sentiments and folk lore, superstitions, symbolism, mysticism, use in medicine, protection, prevention, religion, and divination. Crystal gazing, birth-stones, lucky stones and talismans, astral, zodiacal, and planetary by George Frederick Kunz

This tab, the new OneLook "color thesaurus", is a work in progress. It draws from a data set of more than 2000 color names gathered from sources around the Web, and an analysis of how they are referenced in English texts.

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